The Nielsen Digital Ad Ratings solution aims to provide the media industry with a highly accurate method of measuring online advertising audiences, delivering reach, frequency and gross rating point (GRP) metrics, as well as demographics such as age and gender to determine the effectiveness of digital advertising campaigns. The solution uses a patented process combining Nielsen's online data with aggregated, anonymous demographic information from third-party data providers.

Prashant Singh, managing director, Nielsen India region, says, "Digital is fuelling growth in brand advertising and Digital Ad Ratings stands to transform the advertising landscape by bringing standardisation and accountability, and help advertisers and agencies gauge return on investment for every rupee they spend online."

Currently, in markets where Digital Ad Ratings is not available, advertisers and agencies wanting to track the reach of their digital campaigns tend to use metrics such as click-through rates, conversion rates and cost per video views, all of which lack the people metric. Powered by Facebook, Nielsen Digital Ad Ratings will enable publishers to accurately deliver advertising messages to audiences, help advertisers to ensure that their brand messages reach the right people to maximise RoI, and support agencies in optimising campaigns in-flight to deliver peak efficiency and effectiveness.

"Advertisers, agencies and publishers stand to gain most from Digital Ad Ratings due to its ability to provide a true picture of their actual online audience - not just cookies and impressions. You can now analyse your brand's online ad campaign just like you would for TV and print," says Dolly Jha, executive director, Nielsen India, and marketing effectiveness practice area lead. "Moreover, Digital Ad Ratings allows for overnight measurement for campaigns that will make it possible for clients to apply in-flight changes to their media plan," she adds.

An official statement says, "Compared to all advertising mediums, digital is witnessing the fastest year-on-year growth of nearly 30 per cent. While there are marketers who have allocated over 20 per cent of their marketing spend on digital, nearly all brand marketers are looking at spending more on digital, given the fast growing internet user base, creativity and innovation possible on the digital medium thanks to different ad formats, and the ability of this medium to better reach consumers."

Singh further adds, "It's all about measuring people, not devices. Our integration with Facebook allows us to provide unique audience by counting people and not just the devices on which they consume content. This provides the ecosystem with an accurate measurement of reach and frequency in the digital world, which was absent so far.

While Digital Ad Ratings is a global product already commercially available in multiple countries, it has been customised to factor in local nuances and market specifics in India. The statement adds that there are correction and calibration factors that are built in to take into account these regional differences. It says, "The benefits of Digital Ad Ratings are many. It enables agencies and marketers identify who it is they're actually reaching online and also helps them evaluate unique reach and frequency across campaigns and within each publisher."